Thursday, February 15, 2007
Solution to Hemisphere E&M Problem
For the hemisphere problem discussed below, here is my solution. As I said, I get a factor of 3/16 instead of 1/12 as reported in the link (which was broken the last time I checked.)
Oh brother...
Embarrassing. Not much more can be added. I understand that some people, many of my acquaintances in fact, don't care about the science. They are comfortable in a yom = 24 hours YEC view, and not interested in hearing arguments to the contrary. I have no problem with that. Nor do I have a problem with someone who takes the next step, and says, as I have heard many times: I'm sure you're right about what science teaches, I just don't believe it. Fair enough. But my threshold is crossed when bad science is used to impugn good science, and done so with malice aforethought. I think indifference to science is theologically wrong but understandable. In the grand scheme of things it's not a big deal if someone doesn't want to reconcile his beliefs with science and takes the honest route of saying: "I don't care what science teaches." But what this site and others like it do—well that's just lying for Jesus.
I know I'll upset some of my readers, but the difference between the fixed earth site and the AiG or the ICR is, in my opinion, simply a matter of spit-polish and funding. Rather than admit the possibility that their private interpretation of Genesis might be wrong, they prefer to make God into a god of confusion--one whose creation doesn't proclaim his glory. How could it, if the information it reveals cannot be trusted?
I know I'll upset some of my readers, but the difference between the fixed earth site and the AiG or the ICR is, in my opinion, simply a matter of spit-polish and funding. Rather than admit the possibility that their private interpretation of Genesis might be wrong, they prefer to make God into a god of confusion--one whose creation doesn't proclaim his glory. How could it, if the information it reveals cannot be trusted?
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Ooooh it's so close!
The Daytona 500 is Sunday. It's often called the Super Bowl of NASCAR. Based on the relative number of spectators in attendance, it makes more sense to call the Super Bowl the Daytona 500 of the NFL.
Daytona is all about the magnitude of the event. An unimaginably large track with banking so steep (31 degrees) that if you place a coin the banking, on its side, it will slide down (so I am told).
The top speed of 210 mph was achieved in a qualifying run by Bill Elliott in 1987. Such speeds are too dangerous, for drivers and fans, so shortly thereafter NASCAR mandated a "restrictor plate" (only at Daytona an Talladega) which slows the cars down--qualifying speeds are now around 185 mph. The result of the restrictor plate is "pack racing" and "bump drafting." The cars race around in a giant pack rather than spreading out in a normal fashion. On the straight-aways, it's acceptable to bump the car in front—the effect is a burst of speed. (The driver in front wants the car behind to bump him. But if you do it on the turns, and someone probably will, the bumpee will spin out and crash.) One mistake, and you get the dreaded though highly anticipated "big one." That's a wreck involving many cars at once.
Here is a big one at Daytona in 2002 started by my favorite driver, Kevin Harvick. In the final tally it involved 20 cars—probably more than half of the cars that where still running at that time. When the video starts, the TV coverage picks up the wreck in progress on a return from commercial. There is a delay until they show you the replay--because they won't show it until they are sure nobody is seriously injured.
The "big one" is undeniably cool, but I've come to prefer normal "hard" racing. One of the most amazing sporting events I ever watched was the last two laps and photo finish between Ricky Craven and Kurt Busch at Darlington in 2003. They locked cars at the end, and Craven later said he only won because his car was an inch longer. I was watching at the airport, and almost missed my flight because I refused to board until I saw the ending.
Daytona is all about the magnitude of the event. An unimaginably large track with banking so steep (31 degrees) that if you place a coin the banking, on its side, it will slide down (so I am told).
The top speed of 210 mph was achieved in a qualifying run by Bill Elliott in 1987. Such speeds are too dangerous, for drivers and fans, so shortly thereafter NASCAR mandated a "restrictor plate" (only at Daytona an Talladega) which slows the cars down--qualifying speeds are now around 185 mph. The result of the restrictor plate is "pack racing" and "bump drafting." The cars race around in a giant pack rather than spreading out in a normal fashion. On the straight-aways, it's acceptable to bump the car in front—the effect is a burst of speed. (The driver in front wants the car behind to bump him. But if you do it on the turns, and someone probably will, the bumpee will spin out and crash.) One mistake, and you get the dreaded though highly anticipated "big one." That's a wreck involving many cars at once.
Here is a big one at Daytona in 2002 started by my favorite driver, Kevin Harvick. In the final tally it involved 20 cars—probably more than half of the cars that where still running at that time. When the video starts, the TV coverage picks up the wreck in progress on a return from commercial. There is a delay until they show you the replay--because they won't show it until they are sure nobody is seriously injured.
The "big one" is undeniably cool, but I've come to prefer normal "hard" racing. One of the most amazing sporting events I ever watched was the last two laps and photo finish between Ricky Craven and Kurt Busch at Darlington in 2003. They locked cars at the end, and Craven later said he only won because his car was an inch longer. I was watching at the airport, and almost missed my flight because I refused to board until I saw the ending.
Physics Outrage! (And a problem)
First came the feminizing of the Olympics. You can watch deformed prepubescent girls in "women's" gymnastics or figure skating 24/7 (No offense, Amanda--and that deformed comment applies only to the gymnasts, not to the skaters!). But for cool stuff like boxing and the biathlon you have to stay up until 3:00 am and watch on CNBC.
That's bad enough. But now---physics too! Oh no, not physics!
First came the appalling and apocalyptic revelation that J. D. Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics, text book of text books, standard bearer for all that was good and proper about a graduate education in physics, had, in its third addition, in spite of a pledge from Jackson that it'd never happen, switched from cgs units to, *gasp*, mks! Open up Jackson (his book, that is) and you now find unseemly 4πε0's strewn about the pages like mouse droppings. Sigh.
Now word comes to me that there is an even more disturbing trend in physics texts. This is only a rumor which I haven't confirmed—let's hope snopes.com soon reports that it is an urban legend. What I hear, and it brings me to my knees, is that some new physics texts are calling the polar angle φ and the azimuthal angle θ! Unspeakable blasphemy! That's how those lowly mathematicians label the angles! Make them switch! Oh, please say it ain't so!
OK, there is a cool physics problem described here. When I solve it, I get a different factor than the 1/12 in the "obvious" answer. I'm inviting readers to solve it, and tell me what they get. It's driving me nuts—seems like a simple enough problem. I want to know if I am doing something really dumb.
UPDATE: the link to the problem seems to be broken. Here it is: Consider a sphere of radius R and total charge Q. What is the force between the northern and southern hemispheres? (Since the problem did not state that the sphere was conducting, I distributed the charge uniformly throughout the sphere.)
That's bad enough. But now---physics too! Oh no, not physics!
First came the appalling and apocalyptic revelation that J. D. Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics, text book of text books, standard bearer for all that was good and proper about a graduate education in physics, had, in its third addition, in spite of a pledge from Jackson that it'd never happen, switched from cgs units to, *gasp*, mks! Open up Jackson (his book, that is) and you now find unseemly 4πε0's strewn about the pages like mouse droppings. Sigh.
Now word comes to me that there is an even more disturbing trend in physics texts. This is only a rumor which I haven't confirmed—let's hope snopes.com soon reports that it is an urban legend. What I hear, and it brings me to my knees, is that some new physics texts are calling the polar angle φ and the azimuthal angle θ! Unspeakable blasphemy! That's how those lowly mathematicians label the angles! Make them switch! Oh, please say it ain't so!
OK, there is a cool physics problem described here. When I solve it, I get a different factor than the 1/12 in the "obvious" answer. I'm inviting readers to solve it, and tell me what they get. It's driving me nuts—seems like a simple enough problem. I want to know if I am doing something really dumb.
UPDATE: the link to the problem seems to be broken. Here it is: Consider a sphere of radius R and total charge Q. What is the force between the northern and southern hemispheres? (Since the problem did not state that the sphere was conducting, I distributed the charge uniformly throughout the sphere.)
Monday, February 12, 2007
Gilson on Dawkins
Tom Gilson is the author of the aptly named Thinking Christian, one of the more consistently though-provoking Christian blogs. Gilson published an article entitled Religion isn't bad for kids in my old hometown paper, the Newport News Daily Press. In the article, Gilson calls out Richard Dawkins on his thesis that a religious upbringing is a form of child abuse. I encourage all to read the article.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Sam Harris in his own words
Commenter “keiths” is calling me to task for my mocking of Sam Harris. Rightly so—it is one thing to say that somebody is wrong and then to give reasons. It’s quite another to say, as I have, that Sam Harris is not worthy of serious contemplation—that he, in fact, has attained a level of absurdity where he should be mocked.
The basis for keiths’s criticism of me stems from comments and a small post I’ve made since reading this post from Joy on Telic Thoughts. In that post, Joy reports excerpts from an article by John Gorenfeld on AlterNet entitled Sam Harris's Faith in Eastern Spirituality and Muslim Torture.
One thing, as something of an aside, Harris’s book The End of Faith is full of errors when it discusses Christianity. (Perhaps Judaism and Islam as well—I wouldn’t know.) For example, in discussing Mosaic civil law, Harris writes, concerning the punishment of stoning:
[I]t is only by ignoring such barbarisms that the Good Book can be reconciled with life in the modern world. This is a problem for “moderation” in religion: it has nothing underwriting it other than the unacknowledged neglect of the letter of the divine law. (The End of Faith, p.18.)
This is not the criticism of a scholar, but a hack. It is a blog-comment level criticism, spruced up a bit by a better than average vocabulary and an editing process. Actually, it is worse than most comments, and I have seen quite a few addressing the same issue. The pattern is always the same:
A: Then why don’t you stone adulterers?
C: Because the New Testament teaches that the ceremonial and civil law was abrogated.
A: That’s a load of crap.
Harris doesn’t acknowledge, as a scholar would, that there are scripture based arguments Christian theologians invoke to explain why we don’t stone people—even if (and then I’d have no complaint) he then attempted to dismantle those arguments. He simply presents his point as a manifestly true example of irrationality (if the bible is true, then we should advocate stoning) and also, absurdly, characterizes it as unacknowledged. But even the least theologically inclined Christian would know enough to say to Harris: Jesus did not command the stoning of the adulteress. He ignored the civil law, and if he did, then so should we. That’s a perfectly good refutation of Harris’s claim that modern Christians are ignoring stoning as a matter of convenience. And that is not the extent of the theological argument, which would include extensive references to the Christians’ relation to the law, from both Jesus and Paul. It’s just the first, simple shot across the bow, and Harris does not even do enough homework to answer that most trivial of rebuttals.
Why does Harris make such poor arguments? Well, he certainly doesn’t posses the subtlety of a Fellini. In fact, he’s quite transparent. One of Harris’s main points, one that he is always trying to make, is that even religious moderates, such as Ken Miller, are not rational. Here his point is: their very moderation that you want me to accommodate proves the irrationality of their beliefs. If they really believed what they claim to believe they’d be all for public stonings—but they adapt their beliefs to modern times and culture, thereby inadvertently demonstrating that their beliefs are not based on absolute truth. Rather than address any possible legitimate explanations, he takes the coward’s way out: he pretends there are none.
This pattern repeats itself throughout his book: error after error. He has, as far as I know, been given a free pass in this regard. Presumably most readers feel whether or not he correctly represents the religions he bashes is secondary—but I think that’s a mistake.
Harris, if you believe him, is all about rationality. A belief, to be rational, must be based on evidence. I agree, and have been saying quite the same thing for all the years I’ve been blogging. You see, Harris makes the same mistake that, ironically, some Christians make, that faith means blind faith. Blind faith is indeed irrational, but Christianity is not based on blind faith. For some of my posts on this subject, look here and here.
My faith is based on evidence—however it is not scientific evidence. It is purely subjective. Among other things, the heavens do indeed declare the glory of God to me, though I acknowledge not to everyone.
So, again Harris is wrong—but let’s grant him his premise and run with it. For the sake of argument, let’s agree:
Well, let’s first look at Gorenfeld wrote in the AlterNet article:
[A]ccording to Harris, our civilians must evolve past churchgoing to "modern spiritual practice," he writes. "[M]ysticism is a rational enterprise," he writes in his book, arguing it lets spiritualists "uncover genuine facts about the world." And he tells AlterNet there are "social pressures" against research into ESP.
and
Asked which cases are most suggestive of reincarnation, Harris admits to being won over by accounts of "xenoglossy," in which people abruptly begin speaking languages they don't know. Remember the girl in "The Exorcist"? "When a kid starts speaking Bengali, we have no idea scientifically what's going on," Harris tells me. It's hard to believe what I'm hearing from the man the New York Times hails as atheism's "standard-bearer."
Harris writes: "There seems to be a body of data attesting to the reality of psychic phenomena, much of which have been ignored by mainstream science." On the phone he backpedals away from the claim.
We see the problem: while Christianity is irrational because it is not based on evidence, mysticism is rational. But why is a Buddhist monk’s transcendental state more real than a Christian’s conviction that they experience a living God? Harris never says. It’s easy to come away with the feeling that his reason is no more compelling than he likes one (Buddhism) and hates the other (Christianity.) And not just me—some honest atheists have criticized Harris for his claims that eastern spirituality and mysticism are rational.
Now, keiths, as I stated at the beginning of the article, complains that I base my mocking on Harris on what Gorenfeld wrote that Harris said in an interview and not Harris’s own words. Fair enough, and given that I don’t know keiths I can only assume that he is the very epitome of fairness—that his concern over Gorenfeld’s writing would be just as great if Gorenfeld had interviewed Mike Behe, and reported that Behe said silly things in the interview, silly things not found in his books. I have to believe that keiths would be just as adamant that those reported statements could not be held against Behe. What is worth noting, however, is that, as far as I know, no substantive charges regarding the accuracy of Gorenfeld’s article have been leveled.
No matter. Because, I have read The End of Faith and I know what it contains. So to appease keiths I’ll withdraw the charge that Harris admits to being won over by accounts of "xenoglossy." Maybe Gorenfeld fabricated that. No evidence that he did, but let’s, on keiths’s account, deny Gorenfeld the benefit of the doubt. I’ll stick to what is in Harris’s book.
The juicy chapter in The End of Faith is chapter seven, Experiments in Consciousness, and in the notes pertaining to that chapter. I’ll present some excerpts—and keep in mind that Harris has arguably attained the position of standard bearer for rationalism. He despises even “moderate” monotheism for its irrationality. So what does he have to say about eastern spirituality, in his own words? We get an early glimpse when he compares wise men of the east to, well, unnamed western theologians:
Nevertheless, when the great philosopher mystics of the East are weighed against the patriarchs of the Western philosophical and theological traditions, the difference is unmistakable: Buddha, Shankara, Padmasambhava, Nagarjuna, Longchenpa, and countless others down to the present have no equivalents in the West. In spiritual terms, we appear to have been standing on the shoulders of dwarfs. (The End of Faith, p.215. Emphasis added.)
Thus we have a bold assertion that the likes of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and John Calvin are “dwarfs” compared to eastern mystics. No reason for the ranking is provided, just an unsupported assertion that would not bode well for a student looking for a good grade on a freshman writing assignment. But the denigration of great western theologians is secondary—it’s the beatification of mystics that seems to be at odds with the office of Supreme Guru of Rational Show-Me-The-Empirical-Evidence Thought.
Soon after we are treated to another unscholarly assertion, one that is absent the evidence that Harris allegedly esteems so highly, this time in the form of a bizarre challenge. Harris writes:
While this is not a treatise on Eastern spirituality, it does not seem out of place to briefly examine the differences between the Eastern and Western canons, for they are genuinely startling. To illustrate this point, I have selected a passage at random from a shelf of Buddhist literature. The following text was found with closed eyes, on the first attempt from among scores of books. I invite the reader to find anything even remotely like this in the Bible or the Koran.
Don’t worry if the Padmasambhava scripture is impenetrable—Harris assures his readers it’s the real McCoy:
While the meaning of the above passage might not be perfectly apparent to all readers—it is just a section of a longer teaching on the nature of mind and contains a fair amount of Buddhist jargon (“clarity”, “emptiness”. “single flavor”, etc.)—it is a rigorously empirical document, not a statement of metaphysics. Even the contemporary literature on consciousness, which spans philosophy, cognitive science, psychology and neural science, cannot match the kind of precise phenomenological studies that can be found throughout the Buddhist canon. (The End of Faith, p.217. Emphasis added.)
Why is Christianity irrational and Buddhism rational? Because, Harris tells us, the monotheistic religions are based on faith, but Eastern mystical consciousness-raising is “rigorously empirical.” In his notes, we get further educated in this matter:
[I]t remains true that the esoteric teachings of Buddhism offer the most complete methodology we have for discovering the intrinsic freedom of consciousness, unencumbered by any dogma. It is no exaggeration to say that meetings between the Dalai Lama and Christian ecclesiastics to mutually honor their religious traditions are like meetings between physicists from Cambridge and the Bushmen of the Kalahari to mutually honor their respective understandings of the physical universe. (The End of Faith, p.293-294. Emphasis added.)
It is often said that a person cannot learn these things from reading a book. In the general case, this is undoubtedly true. I would add that one is by no means guaranteed to recognize the intrinsic nonduality of consciousness simply by having an eminent meditation master point it out. The conditions have to be just right: the teacher has to be really delivering the goods, leaving no conceptual doubt as to what is to be recognized; and the student has to be endowed with sufficient concentration to follow his instructions and to notice what there is to notice. (The End of Faith, p.298. Emphasis added.)
There is more we could present on Harris’s view on the experimental science of meditation. Since this is already an outrageously long post, I’ll just jump ahead to the penultimate paragraph of the book:
Mysticism is a rational enterprise. Religion is not. The mystic has recognized something about the nature of consciousness prior to thought, and this recognition is susceptible to rational discussion. The mystic has reason for what he believes, and these reasons are empirical. The roiling mystery of the world can be analyzed with concepts (this is science), or it can be experienced free of concepts (this is mysticism). Religion is nothing more than bad concepts held in place of good ones for all time. It is the denial—at once full of hope and full of fear—of the vastitude of human ignorance. (The End of Faith, p.221. Emphasis added.)
I submit that Harris, just based on his own words from a single source, suffers from a serious lack of self-consistency. His complaints against Christianity:
The basis for keiths’s criticism of me stems from comments and a small post I’ve made since reading this post from Joy on Telic Thoughts. In that post, Joy reports excerpts from an article by John Gorenfeld on AlterNet entitled Sam Harris's Faith in Eastern Spirituality and Muslim Torture.
One thing, as something of an aside, Harris’s book The End of Faith is full of errors when it discusses Christianity. (Perhaps Judaism and Islam as well—I wouldn’t know.) For example, in discussing Mosaic civil law, Harris writes, concerning the punishment of stoning:
[I]t is only by ignoring such barbarisms that the Good Book can be reconciled with life in the modern world. This is a problem for “moderation” in religion: it has nothing underwriting it other than the unacknowledged neglect of the letter of the divine law. (The End of Faith, p.18.)
This is not the criticism of a scholar, but a hack. It is a blog-comment level criticism, spruced up a bit by a better than average vocabulary and an editing process. Actually, it is worse than most comments, and I have seen quite a few addressing the same issue. The pattern is always the same:
A: Then why don’t you stone adulterers?
C: Because the New Testament teaches that the ceremonial and civil law was abrogated.
A: That’s a load of crap.
Harris doesn’t acknowledge, as a scholar would, that there are scripture based arguments Christian theologians invoke to explain why we don’t stone people—even if (and then I’d have no complaint) he then attempted to dismantle those arguments. He simply presents his point as a manifestly true example of irrationality (if the bible is true, then we should advocate stoning) and also, absurdly, characterizes it as unacknowledged. But even the least theologically inclined Christian would know enough to say to Harris: Jesus did not command the stoning of the adulteress. He ignored the civil law, and if he did, then so should we. That’s a perfectly good refutation of Harris’s claim that modern Christians are ignoring stoning as a matter of convenience. And that is not the extent of the theological argument, which would include extensive references to the Christians’ relation to the law, from both Jesus and Paul. It’s just the first, simple shot across the bow, and Harris does not even do enough homework to answer that most trivial of rebuttals.
Why does Harris make such poor arguments? Well, he certainly doesn’t posses the subtlety of a Fellini. In fact, he’s quite transparent. One of Harris’s main points, one that he is always trying to make, is that even religious moderates, such as Ken Miller, are not rational. Here his point is: their very moderation that you want me to accommodate proves the irrationality of their beliefs. If they really believed what they claim to believe they’d be all for public stonings—but they adapt their beliefs to modern times and culture, thereby inadvertently demonstrating that their beliefs are not based on absolute truth. Rather than address any possible legitimate explanations, he takes the coward’s way out: he pretends there are none.
This pattern repeats itself throughout his book: error after error. He has, as far as I know, been given a free pass in this regard. Presumably most readers feel whether or not he correctly represents the religions he bashes is secondary—but I think that’s a mistake.
Harris, if you believe him, is all about rationality. A belief, to be rational, must be based on evidence. I agree, and have been saying quite the same thing for all the years I’ve been blogging. You see, Harris makes the same mistake that, ironically, some Christians make, that faith means blind faith. Blind faith is indeed irrational, but Christianity is not based on blind faith. For some of my posts on this subject, look here and here.
My faith is based on evidence—however it is not scientific evidence. It is purely subjective. Among other things, the heavens do indeed declare the glory of God to me, though I acknowledge not to everyone.
So, again Harris is wrong—but let’s grant him his premise and run with it. For the sake of argument, let’s agree:
- Harris champions rationality and reason, meaning our beliefs should be based on empirical evidence.
- Christianity (for the sake of argument) is not based on evidence, therefore it is irrational.
Well, let’s first look at Gorenfeld wrote in the AlterNet article:
[A]ccording to Harris, our civilians must evolve past churchgoing to "modern spiritual practice," he writes. "[M]ysticism is a rational enterprise," he writes in his book, arguing it lets spiritualists "uncover genuine facts about the world." And he tells AlterNet there are "social pressures" against research into ESP.
and
Asked which cases are most suggestive of reincarnation, Harris admits to being won over by accounts of "xenoglossy," in which people abruptly begin speaking languages they don't know. Remember the girl in "The Exorcist"? "When a kid starts speaking Bengali, we have no idea scientifically what's going on," Harris tells me. It's hard to believe what I'm hearing from the man the New York Times hails as atheism's "standard-bearer."
Harris writes: "There seems to be a body of data attesting to the reality of psychic phenomena, much of which have been ignored by mainstream science." On the phone he backpedals away from the claim.
We see the problem: while Christianity is irrational because it is not based on evidence, mysticism is rational. But why is a Buddhist monk’s transcendental state more real than a Christian’s conviction that they experience a living God? Harris never says. It’s easy to come away with the feeling that his reason is no more compelling than he likes one (Buddhism) and hates the other (Christianity.) And not just me—some honest atheists have criticized Harris for his claims that eastern spirituality and mysticism are rational.
Now, keiths, as I stated at the beginning of the article, complains that I base my mocking on Harris on what Gorenfeld wrote that Harris said in an interview and not Harris’s own words. Fair enough, and given that I don’t know keiths I can only assume that he is the very epitome of fairness—that his concern over Gorenfeld’s writing would be just as great if Gorenfeld had interviewed Mike Behe, and reported that Behe said silly things in the interview, silly things not found in his books. I have to believe that keiths would be just as adamant that those reported statements could not be held against Behe. What is worth noting, however, is that, as far as I know, no substantive charges regarding the accuracy of Gorenfeld’s article have been leveled.
No matter. Because, I have read The End of Faith and I know what it contains. So to appease keiths I’ll withdraw the charge that Harris admits to being won over by accounts of "xenoglossy." Maybe Gorenfeld fabricated that. No evidence that he did, but let’s, on keiths’s account, deny Gorenfeld the benefit of the doubt. I’ll stick to what is in Harris’s book.
The juicy chapter in The End of Faith is chapter seven, Experiments in Consciousness, and in the notes pertaining to that chapter. I’ll present some excerpts—and keep in mind that Harris has arguably attained the position of standard bearer for rationalism. He despises even “moderate” monotheism for its irrationality. So what does he have to say about eastern spirituality, in his own words? We get an early glimpse when he compares wise men of the east to, well, unnamed western theologians:
Nevertheless, when the great philosopher mystics of the East are weighed against the patriarchs of the Western philosophical and theological traditions, the difference is unmistakable: Buddha, Shankara, Padmasambhava, Nagarjuna, Longchenpa, and countless others down to the present have no equivalents in the West. In spiritual terms, we appear to have been standing on the shoulders of dwarfs. (The End of Faith, p.215. Emphasis added.)
Thus we have a bold assertion that the likes of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and John Calvin are “dwarfs” compared to eastern mystics. No reason for the ranking is provided, just an unsupported assertion that would not bode well for a student looking for a good grade on a freshman writing assignment. But the denigration of great western theologians is secondary—it’s the beatification of mystics that seems to be at odds with the office of Supreme Guru of Rational Show-Me-The-Empirical-Evidence Thought.
Soon after we are treated to another unscholarly assertion, one that is absent the evidence that Harris allegedly esteems so highly, this time in the form of a bizarre challenge. Harris writes:
While this is not a treatise on Eastern spirituality, it does not seem out of place to briefly examine the differences between the Eastern and Western canons, for they are genuinely startling. To illustrate this point, I have selected a passage at random from a shelf of Buddhist literature. The following text was found with closed eyes, on the first attempt from among scores of books. I invite the reader to find anything even remotely like this in the Bible or the Koran.
And in the present moment, when (your mind) remains in its own condition without constructing anything, awareness, at that moment, in itself is quite ordinary.One could live an eon as a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew and never encounter any teachings like this about the nature of consciousness. (The End of Faith, p.215-216. Emphasis added.)
And when you look into yourself in this way nakedly (without any discursive thoughts),
Since there is only this pure observing, there will be found a lucid clarity without anyone being there who is the observer;
only a naked manifest awareness is present.
(This awareness) is empty and immaculately pure, not being created by anything whatsoever.
It is authentic and unadulterated, without any duality of clarity and emptiness.
It is not permanent and yet it is not created by anything.
However, it is not a mere nothingness or something annihilated because it is lucid and present.
It does not exist as a single entity because it is present and clear in terms of being many.
(On the other hand) it is not created as a multiplicity of things because it is inseparable and of a single flavor.
This inherent self-awareness does not derive from anything outside itself.
This is the real introduction to the actual condition of things. –Padmasambhava
Don’t worry if the Padmasambhava scripture is impenetrable—Harris assures his readers it’s the real McCoy:
While the meaning of the above passage might not be perfectly apparent to all readers—it is just a section of a longer teaching on the nature of mind and contains a fair amount of Buddhist jargon (“clarity”, “emptiness”. “single flavor”, etc.)—it is a rigorously empirical document, not a statement of metaphysics. Even the contemporary literature on consciousness, which spans philosophy, cognitive science, psychology and neural science, cannot match the kind of precise phenomenological studies that can be found throughout the Buddhist canon. (The End of Faith, p.217. Emphasis added.)
Why is Christianity irrational and Buddhism rational? Because, Harris tells us, the monotheistic religions are based on faith, but Eastern mystical consciousness-raising is “rigorously empirical.” In his notes, we get further educated in this matter:
[I]t remains true that the esoteric teachings of Buddhism offer the most complete methodology we have for discovering the intrinsic freedom of consciousness, unencumbered by any dogma. It is no exaggeration to say that meetings between the Dalai Lama and Christian ecclesiastics to mutually honor their religious traditions are like meetings between physicists from Cambridge and the Bushmen of the Kalahari to mutually honor their respective understandings of the physical universe. (The End of Faith, p.293-294. Emphasis added.)
It is often said that a person cannot learn these things from reading a book. In the general case, this is undoubtedly true. I would add that one is by no means guaranteed to recognize the intrinsic nonduality of consciousness simply by having an eminent meditation master point it out. The conditions have to be just right: the teacher has to be really delivering the goods, leaving no conceptual doubt as to what is to be recognized; and the student has to be endowed with sufficient concentration to follow his instructions and to notice what there is to notice. (The End of Faith, p.298. Emphasis added.)
There is more we could present on Harris’s view on the experimental science of meditation. Since this is already an outrageously long post, I’ll just jump ahead to the penultimate paragraph of the book:
Mysticism is a rational enterprise. Religion is not. The mystic has recognized something about the nature of consciousness prior to thought, and this recognition is susceptible to rational discussion. The mystic has reason for what he believes, and these reasons are empirical. The roiling mystery of the world can be analyzed with concepts (this is science), or it can be experienced free of concepts (this is mysticism). Religion is nothing more than bad concepts held in place of good ones for all time. It is the denial—at once full of hope and full of fear—of the vastitude of human ignorance. (The End of Faith, p.221. Emphasis added.)
I submit that Harris, just based on his own words from a single source, suffers from a serious lack of self-consistency. His complaints against Christianity:
- Suffer from a lack of basic knowledge of Christian doctrine, such as when he suggests we have no good reason to abandon the Mosaic civil law except to shoehorn Christianity into modern times. (I might as well mention another obvious comeback to that particular argument: the early Christians also “ignored” the Levitical punishments, even without the rarefied sensibilities of modern men like Harris.)
- Suffer further from the fact that while he condemns Christianity for its lack of evidence, he does not apply the same standard to mysticism—thereby calling his credibility into question. Big time.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Without Comment
1) On the way to work today, I was behind a car that had its rear-end festooned with bumper stickers. That’s often a fun peek into a narcissist’s psyche. This little red Toyota had a variety of easily readable expressions, among them: Impeach Bush! Iran has no WMD either! Support our Troops: Bring Them Home! There was also a Darwin fish. And there were many more. I got the picture, and I’m sure you get the picture. Again, this is without comment—you have no idea, for example, whether I agree or disagree with, say, “Support our Troops: Bring Them Home!” There were, however, two circular purple stickers that I couldn’t make out. Leaning forward in my seat, I inched as close as possible to the rear bumper. Given my military style haircut, the driver might have gotten nervous that I was trying to be intimidating were it not for the fact that I drive an orange Honda Element rather that a black F250 pickup. Finally I made out the purple stickers: they were astrological charts! Interestingly, this made the driver less complex and less interesting.
2) I certainly am guilty of assuming that, more or less, everyone is interested in the same things that interest me. How could they not be? As a corollary, surely everyone is acutely aware of all the controversies that, on a daily basis, attract my attention. Well, the perfect refutation for this assumption showed up today in our local newspaper, the Nashua Telegraph. In an article entitled Nashua picked as charter school site (registration required) we read:
NASHUA – The city will soon be home to a new charter school focused on science and math, with classes expected to begin in the fall.
Organizers of The Academy for Science and Design, a school for middle- and high-school aged students, say they have chosen Nashua as the location for the school. (emphasis added)
If the decision makers, at any point in the process, had any familiarity with the circles I travel, there is no way that name would have survived.
2) I certainly am guilty of assuming that, more or less, everyone is interested in the same things that interest me. How could they not be? As a corollary, surely everyone is acutely aware of all the controversies that, on a daily basis, attract my attention. Well, the perfect refutation for this assumption showed up today in our local newspaper, the Nashua Telegraph. In an article entitled Nashua picked as charter school site (registration required) we read:
NASHUA – The city will soon be home to a new charter school focused on science and math, with classes expected to begin in the fall.
Organizers of The Academy for Science and Design, a school for middle- and high-school aged students, say they have chosen Nashua as the location for the school. (emphasis added)
If the decision makers, at any point in the process, had any familiarity with the circles I travel, there is no way that name would have survived.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Templeton Foundation Slap-Down
The Templeton Foundation, which most people would be tempted put in the ID camp, has issued a scathing, unambiguous rejection of ID as science. In an LA Times post entitled: Stance is misconstrued on 'intelligent design' a Templeton vice-president, Pamela Thompson, writes:
"Testing the role of trust and values in financial decisions" (Jan. 21) incorrectly describes the John Templeton Foundation as having been an early supporter of the political movement known as "intelligent design."
We do not believe that the science underpinning the intelligent-design movement is sound, we do not support research or programs that deny large areas of well-documented scientific knowledge, and the foundation is a nonpolitical entity and does not engage in or support political movements.
The foundation has provided tens of millions of dollars in support of research academics who are critical of the anti-evolution intelligent-design position.
For almost a decade, the foundation has been a major supporter of a substantial program of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science. One of the program's chief activities has been to inform the public of the weakness of the intelligent-design position on modern evolutionary biology.
In the past we have given grants to scientists who have gone on to identify themselves as members of the intelligent-design community. We understand that this could be misconstrued by some to suggest that we implicitly support the movement, but this was not our intention at the time, nor is it today.
Pamela Thompson
Vice president, communications
John Templeton Foundation
West Conshohocken, Pa.
This is a serious (and well deserved) slap in the face of the ID political movement. It can properly be viewed as the Templeton foundation saying: we wuz duped, but no more—you promised us science and you gave us nothing but a bunch of crap—just politics.
In the long run, this is good for ID in its proper role as an apologetic argument. Another nail in the coffin of ID the pseudo-science—a movement that employs non-biblical "ends-justify-the-means" deception—is good for Christianity. For those of us who are scientists and Christians, the Templeton Foundation has just helped us with our stain removal problem.
"Testing the role of trust and values in financial decisions" (Jan. 21) incorrectly describes the John Templeton Foundation as having been an early supporter of the political movement known as "intelligent design."
We do not believe that the science underpinning the intelligent-design movement is sound, we do not support research or programs that deny large areas of well-documented scientific knowledge, and the foundation is a nonpolitical entity and does not engage in or support political movements.
The foundation has provided tens of millions of dollars in support of research academics who are critical of the anti-evolution intelligent-design position.
For almost a decade, the foundation has been a major supporter of a substantial program of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science. One of the program's chief activities has been to inform the public of the weakness of the intelligent-design position on modern evolutionary biology.
In the past we have given grants to scientists who have gone on to identify themselves as members of the intelligent-design community. We understand that this could be misconstrued by some to suggest that we implicitly support the movement, but this was not our intention at the time, nor is it today.
Pamela Thompson
Vice president, communications
John Templeton Foundation
West Conshohocken, Pa.
This is a serious (and well deserved) slap in the face of the ID political movement. It can properly be viewed as the Templeton foundation saying: we wuz duped, but no more—you promised us science and you gave us nothing but a bunch of crap—just politics.
In the long run, this is good for ID in its proper role as an apologetic argument. Another nail in the coffin of ID the pseudo-science—a movement that employs non-biblical "ends-justify-the-means" deception—is good for Christianity. For those of us who are scientists and Christians, the Templeton Foundation has just helped us with our stain removal problem.
Immerse the Immerser
The Baptist insistence on immersion as the only acceptable mode for baptism is based on three arguments. One is the meaning of the Greek word babtizo, for which the claim is made that it absolutely implies immersion. The second argument is that Paul's writing identifies baptism as the symbolism for Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, and only immersion gives justice to that symbolism. And the third is that the baptisms described in scripture clearly indicate immersion.
All three of these points are rather weak and easily countered, but the last one is probably the weakest of the three, and is the only one I'll discuss here.
The basis for the argument is the Greek preposition eis which, in the relevant passages we'll examine, is translated as out of and into. However, it can also be translated as to, upon, unto, towards, for, and among.
The most quoted passage is that of Jesus' baptism, another famous 3:16 verse:
However, the death blow to this argument (not the death blow to the case for immersion, just the death blow for using such passages to prove that it is the only legitimate mode) comes from the case of the Ethiopian eunuch. There we read:
† The observant will note there is no verse 37. It was not left out.
All three of these points are rather weak and easily countered, but the last one is probably the weakest of the three, and is the only one I'll discuss here.
The basis for the argument is the Greek preposition eis which, in the relevant passages we'll examine, is translated as out of and into. However, it can also be translated as to, upon, unto, towards, for, and among.
The most quoted passage is that of Jesus' baptism, another famous 3:16 verse:
And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: (Matt 3:16, KJV)Here the argument goes that if Jesus came "out of" the water, then he must have been immersed. Obviously that is not the case: if one is waist deep with a dry head one can still come up out of the water by walking to the shore. This passage is, at most, suggestive of immersion. It does not require it.
However, the death blow to this argument (not the death blow to the case for immersion, just the death blow for using such passages to prove that it is the only legitimate mode) comes from the case of the Ethiopian eunuch. There we read:
36As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water. Why shouldn't I be baptized?" 38And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. (Acts 8:36-39, NIV†)The problem here for Baptists is that whatever was described for the Ethiopian in relation to the water must also apply to Philip. They both went "into" the water. They both came "up out of" the water. If such language, the same as used in describing Jesus' baptism, demands immersion—then we must conclude that the baptizer (Philip) was also immersed. I know of no Baptist church that requires the pastor to be immersed when administering the ordinance.
† The observant will note there is no verse 37. It was not left out.
Sad News
The story I posted below, about the two missing girls--one the daughter of my colleague, did not end well. Please pray for the families.
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